The Benefit of a Doubt
by BrandSpankingNew
Summary: An AU take on Cascade Waters' Undefined. Burt is led to believe that Finn was the one who damaged the Buick and destroyed Carole's garden, and he is ticked. Without warning and without giving Finn a chance to explain himself, he spanks him. Finn thinks this sucks...and the worst part is that Burt didn't even give him the benefit of a doubt. Warnings inside. Please read intro.


This story is a fanfic of a fanfic; specifically, Cascade Waters' _Undefined_. If you read that first you will understand this better, but it stands ok on its own. I'm sure the traffic would be appreciated though. This is an alternative idea of what may have happened when Burt and Finn had their confrontation; used with permission. The first section (in italics) comes directly from Cascade Waters' story.

**Warnings: **Contains **spanking **and** one homophobic word. **No flames please. I mean no disrespect. I only play with these characters because I love them so much.

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_He was so tired after the series of meetings and flights that he might have missed it if… well, no, actually, there would have been no missing it. He wasn't sure which was worse —the damage to the back corner of his Buick, or the fact that Carol's little pathside herb garden looked like it'd gotten on the wrong side of a bulldozer._

_The façade of the house looked fine, and the front door was locked when he reached it, which lowered his blood pressure just a little. Not much, though._

_The house was quiet, maybe a little too quiet, given the two very… expressive teenagers who shared it with their respective parents. Carol was off teaching or mentoring or something at some girls' retreat in Pennsylvania, and spring break officially started tomorrow, so he wasn't entirely surprised that no one was around, but he could feel his blood pressure inching up again. Something had happened, and no one seemed overly concerned with taking responsibility for it._

_Sighing, Burt dropped his luggage and pulled out his cell phone, and then had a different thought. He put the cell back in his pocket and trudged to the kitchen, picking up the house phone. He dialed Kurt's number, and didn't bother to not roll his eyes as he waited twice through half of a verse of some whiny song about clubbing. Finally, Kurt picked up._

_"No, Finn, I haven't seen your wall charger."_

_Burt blinked in confusion, filed it away, and said, "Good to know." He was relieved not to hear any pain or distress in his kid's voice. Even small impacts could injure someone._

_There was a pause, and he could hear Blaine in the background talking about some part-time job, and then, in a careful tone, Kurt said, "Dad?" Blaine went silent, and Burt grinned to himself. It was fun to mess with the boys sometimes._

_"No, it's the tooth fairy. I was just calling to see if you'd borrowed my tutu again. Yes, Kurt, it's your dad. How's it going?"_

_"Y-you're home?"_

_Burt sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. "Yeeeeeees, son, I'm home. It's sort of where I go when I'm not working or playing politician. What are you guys up to tonight?"_

_"Oh. Uh. We're… we're just, you know, having a latte."_

_Personally, Burt kind of thought Kurt sounded like he'd already had a week's worth of lattes. He kind of figured that Kurt and Blaine could be… fooling around, and he really didn't know if he was supposed to be okay with that or not, but he had other things on his mind tonight. "Okay. I'm trusting you to make good choices. You know, about lattes. Say, I was wondering, you know anything about my passenger taillight, or Carol's plants?" He slipped it into the conversation casually, like he was asking whether Kurt had seen his black cap; he might not be the world's best dad, but he'd learned that teenagers tended to reveal more when they were off their guard. When Kurt didn't respond right away, Burt listened to the silence for about thirty seconds and then called his son's name._

_"Uh. Oh, sorry, Dad. I was just… uh… paying the tab. I don't know what to tell you; I didn't have anything to do with it. You might check with Finn."_

_"Yeah, I'll do that." Burt ended the call and hung up the handset, stewing quietly. After a minute, he got up and took his luggage up to his room. He was pulling out his shaving kit when he heard throbbing bass from a stereo, so he went to his window and looked down. He saw a vaguely familiar car pull away from his curb and his stepson trudge up the driveway. Finn's little Swift—the product of a recent trade- was nowhere in sight. By the time the boy had gotten into the house, Burt was back downstairs, his blood just this side of boiling. -From Cascade Waters' _Undefined

He met the kid just inside the door. "Living room. Now," he demanded with a snap of his fingers and a point down the hallway.

Finn looked a little taken aback, and more than slightly confused, but that wasn't exactly unusual for the kid. Burt herded him into the living room and pointed at the couch. "Sit," he said. Finn plopped onto the couch, clasping his hands between his knees. He looked a little nervous. Well, good. He'd really screwed up this time.

"What happened?" Burt asked, his voice low and stern. "Your mom's garden is a wreck. You know how hard she worked on that! Not to mention the money we spent on all those little starter-kit thingies! It looks like it got in a fight between a bulldozer and a tornado! I mean, how fast were you driving to cause that kind of damage?"

Finn's eyes were wide, and his hands were desperately wringing at each other. Burt could see Finn's eyes tracking him as he paced back and forth along the living room.

"What kind of damage did you do to your car? Did you total it? Did you really think your mom and I wouldn't notice the taillight on the Buick if you got your own car fixed? That looks pretty nasty, kid. With that crappy little Suzuki, I'm surprised you didn't land yourself in the hospital!" He was truly yelling now. Burt felt his blood pressure jump again at the idea that Finn could have been hurt. "Dammit Finn!"

At his yell, he saw Finn push himself into the couch as though he was praying for it to swallow him whole. Finn opened his mouth and took a deep breath, but then an undefined look flashed across those brown eyes. Finn's chin dropped to his chest and he shut his mouth, looking defeated.

Well, at least the kid didn't outright lie to him, Burt thought grimly.

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Finn wasn't generally a nervous guy. He usually tried to just let things roll off of his back, and usually that worked well for him. But right now...Geez, Burt was scary. Like, truly. He wasn't usually scared of Burt. In fact, he forgot, most of the time, that his step-dad could be a real hard-ass, 'cause he just looked like an every day kind of dad, but then sometimes, Burt could be really terrifying. Finn still remembered how awful that whole fight about the "faggy" lamp had been—he'd thought the man was going to clock him for sure. And Burt had nearly strangled Karofsky in the hallway when he'd been bugging Kurt during their dance lesson. He still remembered Karofsky trying to grin past the big, hairy forearm shoved against his throat, and failing. That had been scary as hell. And so was this.

He watched the man pacing back and forth across the floor, getting louder and louder. And Finn wanted to defend himself—he wasn't the one who had done all that damage to the Buick! He hadn't even been here when it happened. He'd been hanging out with Puck and playing Call of Duty, and totally whooping Puck's ass, if he said so himself. He wanted to explain, because dude, it wasn't fair. And he would have tried to fix the garden and stuff but he didn't have enough money to do that AND get the spray paint removed from his car, and if Burt didn't like to hear Finn say that f-word, he wasn't going to want him to drive a car that had it sprayed all over it. Plus, honestly, Finn didn't want to drive it like that. Puck had jokingly called it the "faggot-mobile," and then Finn had punched him in the arm to, like, defend his brother's honor. Or something.

"Dammit, Finn!" The man roared at him and he suddenly realized his mind had wandered. He jerked back into the corner of the couch and opened his mouth to defend himself. Then a thought hit him. He was Kurt's big brother now, right? 'Cause he _was_ bigger than Kurt, by like half a foot. Which meant that he was supposed to protect him. That meant he was also supposed to cover for him, didn't it? Especially since Kurt had begged him not to say anything to Burt or his mom about it. So he shut his mouth and looked down at his knees, hoping that Burt would just stop asking him questions. Especially since he didn't really look like he was all that interested in listening to the answers. And Finn had kind of promised not to say anything anyway.

Burt turned without a word and left the room. Finn continued to stare down at his shoes. He should probably tell his mom he needed new ones, he noted. The leather was starting to separate from the sole by his toes.

The man would have listened to Kurt, he knew. Like, he knew the guy cared about him, no doubt, but Finn never forgot that he wasn't _really_ Burt's kid. And it kind of sucked, because the guy was a good step-dad and all, but he was the best dad-dad in the world, according to Kurt. And Finn could see it.

He heard Burt's footsteps, but didn't look up. There was a soft plop as the man dropped something on the couch and sat down right next to Finn. Finally, Finn dared to look over at his step-dad. The man looked pissed. And determined. Determinedly pissed? He felt Burt's arm go around his back and barely had time to be confused about it, 'cause the guy didn't seem to be in a hugging mood. Then Burt was pulling on him, hard. "Hey!" he yelped as he toppled against the man's legs, and if his hands hadn't hit the carpet first, he would have gotten rug burn on his forehead. Brittany would have totally thought he was a unicorn.

He struggled to right himself, not really getting what Burt was doing. But Burt's hands were planted solidly on his back, and he couldn't get a good angle to push himself up. His heart started to pound in his chest then. "Dude, I..." he started to say.

SMACK! Burt's hand came down hard on his butt, and he froze. No way. No freaking way! SMACK! Ouch!

The third smack made him realize that even though this couldn't be, shouldn't be happening, it totally was. And this position kind of made sense. Because holy crap, the guy was freaking spanking him. Like a five-year-old or something. And he hadn't been spanked since he was _actually_ a five-year-old.

SMACK! Finn felt his face, ears, and even the back of his neck turn red with the realization. He struggled again, trying to pull himself up. The next SMACK! was even harder and nearly knocked the breath out of him. "Hold still," Burt ordered. SMACK!

"Ow!" he yelped involuntarily. His butt really hurt, and Burt had only hit him like half a dozen times. Mechanic's hands. They were like being hit with a piece of rock! He stopped trying to get up though, because he didn't want to make Burt any angrier at him than he already was. Instead he dug his fingers into the carpet and shut his eyes against the tears that threatened as Burt continued spanking him hard and fast.

It just wasn't fair! There was no way he'd spank Kurt like this; it was pretty obvious that Burt would never lay a finger on the guy. And even worse, he was getting spanked (like a five-year-old, his brain added helpfully as if this situation didn't suck enough) for something that he didn't even do! And it freaking hurt a lot more than Finn thought it should considering he was seventeen and basically an adult!

Except right now, he didn't feel like an adult. Because when you're upended over somebody's knee like a five-year-old, it kind of makes you feel like a five-year-old. He felt a few tears escape despite himself.

Then Burt stopped, and Finn took a few gasping breaths. He'd lost track of how many times Burt had hit him, but his butt was on fire and he was glad that this was over, before he lost all of his dignity. Then there was a small tap on his backside that made the pain flare, and then a loud WHACK!

He let out a yell that he couldn't have stopped if he'd tried. "NO!" he begged. Holy grilled cheesus that was pretty much the worst thing he'd ever felt. What had he hit him with?

He twisted back and caught a glimpse of the ping-pong paddle in Burt's hand, and how the hell could it hurt that much? Pure panic lit in his chest at the thought of being hit with it again, and he struggled, needing to get up. But Burt was freaking strong, and he somehow managed to hold him down despite Finn's best effort. Then Burt brought that paddle down again, hard, and Finn let out another yell and collapsed against his step-father's legs. He was never gonna sit down ever again. Ever. Fire roared across his backside and the tops of his thighs.

"Finn, stop fighting me or this is gonna last longer," Burt warned. A third swat from the paddle made Finn let out a hard, gasping sob.

"P-Please! Stop it!" he begged. He held himself as still as he could though, so that Burt would know that he wasn't trying to fight him. Even though he was trying, though, he could feel his body shaking a little, like when he accidentally got a triple espresso at Starbucks that one time. The paddle came down again and Finn let out another sob. He knew tears were running down his cheeks, and he couldn't do anything to stop it.

WHACK! WHACK! Those two swats were hard and fast, and then he heard a soft plop as Burt dropped that stupid paddle on the couch and took his hand off Finn's back. Finn jumped up despite the blazing pain in his butt, because if for some reason Burt changed his mind about being done with spanking him, he needed to be far away. He bolted up the stairs and into his room.

He fell face-down onto his bed and grabbed his butt in both hands. Even through his jeans, he could feel that his skin was hot.

Finn lay there still and concentrated on breathing and trying to rub the pain from his butt. Slowly, his breath got back under control. He sniffed hard and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. His mom always told him not to do that, he remembered belatedly. Carefully, he pushed himself off the bed and limped stiffly into the bathroom for a Kleenex.

His reflection made him wince. His eyes were red, and he had a slime trail under his nose. He blew his nose, which improved things a little. After a moment, he locked the door and undid his jeans, wondering how much damage Burt had done with that stupid paddle. The skin on his butt was bright red, with a spot that was nearly purple where his butt became his thigh. That was gonna bruise. He felt himself blushing again and he quickly refastened his jeans. First chance he got, he was throwing away that damn ping-pong set, because he'd never be able to play it again anyway and nobody should keep a weapon like that in their house.

Back in his room, he stiffly changed into his pajama bottoms and a tee shirt and tossed his clothes haphazardly at the hamper in the corner. He missed, but the effort it would have taken to walk to the hamper seemed like way too much, and so he just left it and carefully settled himself on his stomach on top of his blanket. His butt protested every single move he made with a bright flare of pain.

It hit him again. Burt had spanked him. Like a little kid. He bit his lip.

This whole thing was so, so not fair! He hadn't even done anything, except cover for Kurt, but it wasn't like Burt knew he was covering for him, so that didn't count. And Burt hadn't even given him a chance to explain...even if he hadn't planned on explaining, he should have at least gotten the chance. He knew he wasn't a fast thinker, but he could have thought of something if he'd had a little time.

Finn shut his eyes and dropped his head down on his crossed arms. This sucked so bad. Not just that Burt apparently thought he was a little kid or something. Not just that his butt seriously hurt, like, a _lot_. And not even that nobody bothered to listen to his side of things, even though that totally wasn't fair. But it really hurt that Burt was so ready to think the worst of him, when he would have given Kurt the benefit of a doubt. His step-brother didn't know how freaking lucky he was.

He blinked, and felt tears stinging his eyes. He squeezed them shut so tightly that he could see stars. This was stupid. He was being a baby.

But telling himself that did nothing to stop the tears from coming. So finally Finn buried his head in his pillow and let himself cry silent tears. This day had sucked, big time.


End file.
